The Palmer singularity sucks in all

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Clive Palmer’s spectacular personality explosion continues to wreak havoc in politics. Following the last few weeks of conservative hand-wringing and bluster over free speech and the “right to be a bigot” ensconced in the now withdrawn repeal to section 18c of the Racial Discrimination Act, conservatives are now queuing up to condemn and shut down that very right for Clive Palmer. Ironically, it is the erstwhile libertarian newspaper The Australian leading the assault:

THE Abbott government has warned Clive Palmer against using his elected position to pursue a private feud with Chinese investors, amid deepening fears of diplomatic and economic fallout from his vitriolic attack on China.

The furore could inflict lasting damage on the Palmer United Party as voters witness Mr Palmer’s volatile temperament and he abuses the Chinese only a few years after singing their praises when he was seeking billions of dollars from investors.

As one of Mr Palmer’s colleagues called for missile systems to be aimed at China, the government sharpened its rebukes of the mining magnate and his party for “hurling insults” at one of Australia’s most important partners.

Labor joined the condemnation and business leaders warned of a huge impact on trade but the PUP responded with a call from Tasmanian senator Jacqui Lambie to double defence spending to $60 billion a year to prepare for a Chinese invasion.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop contacted the Chinese embassy yesterday to assure Beijing that Mr Palmer’s remarks were not representative of Australian attitudes, while West Australian Premier Colin Barnett sent a similar message and publicly labelled the PUP leader an “embarrassment”.

Let’s be clear, the literal “free speech” legislation was as absurd as the statements of Clive Palmer. And, frankly, just as self-referential. Culture wars mounted by libertarian think tanks have no place in a mainstream political party of the centre, which is presumably why PM Abbott dumped them. On the other hand, Clive Palmer shouldn’t be using Parliamentary privileges to whip up anti-Chinese sentiment to his own benefit. Both violate simply common decency and what was accepted political culture.

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But the point surely is not that Clive is a free-radical. The simulacra of Palmer’s, the Government’s and the various opposition parties comical politics is obvious. Clive Palmer is, rather, the perfect representation of the entire Parliament. It’s like we took the broken edifice of our political economy and stuffed it down the shirt of one man whose intense enmities and peculiar values have formed a selfishness singularity from which no like-minded politician can escape.

Policy is sold to the highest bidder and turns on a dime when a stakeholder squeaks. Evidence-based policy is dead while closed systems of logic and thought bubbles drive multi-billion dollar waste. The national interest has disappeared into the black hole.

Clive is not some political outlier. He is the nucleus of the vortex that is devouring the machinery of our democracy. Unwittingly he exposes the true girth of the violent suck hole of our venal, inept and narcissistic political parties, their media backers and our broken economic model.

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He has gravity only because all else lack it.

About the author
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.